A member of the NeoGAF forums has posted some concept art of what is rumored to be SimCity 5. There is also a translation of an article from the German magazine Gamestar, who claim to have seen the game for themselves. You can view the pictures and article here.

Please let this be true. I was just day dreaming about this a few weeks ago. Cities XL was quite good (haven't played 2012 yet) and Cities in Motion was amazing, especially considering it's just a transit sim, and I haven't gotten my hands on Anno yet. But nothing, NOTHING will compare to SimCity in my eyes.

Will Wright, I think I speak for all of your old fans when I say that I remember where the "sim" series started. I know The Sims pays the bills, but we want to play too!

I stopped playing Simcity when I learned the first thing about economics and politics. There's a lot of assumptions in Simcity that are ridiculously out of touch with reality and have ruined the premise of the game for me :\

^Who cares. I try not to let my real knowledge of military hardware and aircraft flight dynamics get in the way of a fun movie, as long as it is not too over the top (aka Stealth, yuck).

Bottom line, I love this series. I cannot believe that Simcity 4 is almost 10 years old! What a travesty. Please do this, but also address some of the previous games too. I LOVED SimFam, and after all these Zynga farming games on FB, I think it shows people are interested. Additionally SimTower was a huge time suck for me, and I would love to see a full 3D modeled version where I can build my tower up and fly around it from the outside, adjust the layers of the floor, instead of just a 2 dimensional office/condo/hotel, etc. I would love to be able to fly into my buildings and change corridors, configure the elevators, etc. etc. Also a fun feature might be to allow you to walk your creation and experience it as a Sim. That could be great.

I agree with SimTower, I'd love to see a new version of that, though Tiny Towers almost fit the bill on my iphone but it's just not the same. Question is though, besides updated graphics and new buildings, what can they add to Simcity that hasn't already been done and remain within the scope of the series?

You're an omniscient mayor that lives forever. You create buildings from thin air and you can cause simultaneously cause massive disasters to rain destruction on your citizens at your whim.

Yes, but socialism and capitalism are apparently equally effective. And 90% taxation or w/e doesn't reduce payments as it would in real life. There's so many missing feedback loops and mistaken assumptions built into the game that I just can't play it, it's offensive in its naivete, it's almost propaganda.

Then again, I quit after Civ III so maybe he's built better feedback loops into the game or w/e since then, but I highly doubt it.

I recognize that the gameplay is generally fun, and planning all the cities was certainly fun. I just wish the assumptions built into the game were true to life. Communism and non-freedom can't compete with a free society, all else held equal, but in Civ they can, etc.

I feel like a spoil-sport tho. I'm not knocking the series, I enjoyed it, I'm just saying my enjoyment has been spoiled by too much intimacy with the subject matter. Just as probably a tennis player sees no point in playing Mario Tennis :P

This is pretty funny, the writer describes what happened when he attempted to play Civ V as a Tea Partier.

Quote:

...My ratings as leader went through the roof as other countries squabbled and fought each other. Isolationism as a policy definitely yielded a great first hundred years.

Then something interesting happened close to my bicentennial celebration. Within one round and also without provocation, every country in the world, including ones way across the ocean, declared war on me. Et tu Khan?...